Tora

Overview

Tora

Characteristics
Kanji	とら
Romaji	Tora

Species	Human (formerly) Youkai
Status	Deceased (possibly reborn in the future)
Age	2000+
Gender	Male
Affiliations	Ushio Aotsuki Azafuse Raama

Manga Debut	Chapter 0
Anime Debut	Episode 1

Japanese VA	Koyama Rikiya (Anime) Ootsuka Chikao (OVA)
English VA	Brett Weaver (OVA)
Image Gallery

Tora (とら, Tiger)Is one of the main protagonists of Ushio and Tora. He is a youkai who was released when Ushio Aotsuki pulled out the Beast Spear that kept him pinned to the basement wall of Ushio's temple. Prior to being sealed under the temple, he was known as Nagatobimaru, famously feared among the youkai community for his sheer size, strength, and powers of flame and lightning.

Backstory

Over 2000 years ago, Tora was a human named Shagakusha born in Tianzhu (Ancient India). On the day he was born, Hakumen no Mono appeared as a shooting star and coincidentally chose the baby to be his vessel. The shooting star fell on the baby's house and all of the citizens within its vicinity were obliterated, while Shagakusha was perfectly fine. From that day on, he was known as a cursed child.

As Shagakusha grew up, he hated everyone and everything when he was only a child. He would often get into fights and citizens would throw rocks at him. He would steal food just to survive and lived alone in alleys. Every time he felt hatred, his shoulder would throb.

When he was an adult, Shagakusha became extremely muscular and was a great asset to the army of his country. Even while fighting, he was full of hatred for both his comrades and enemies. However, compared to when he was younger, the townspeople constantly praised him and treated him as a hero. Shagakusha didn't trust anybody because their insults became praise after seeing his strength. Although he was honored by the citizens of Tianzhu, the royals still belittled him and told him not to get cocky, causing his shoulder to throb even more from his hatred for people.

After leaving the palace, he is greeted by his attendant Raama, who is annoyed at how Shagakusha is treated by the royals. Shagakusha asks if Raama is sick of being the attendant of a man like him, but Raama laughs it off and says he wants to be just as strong and kind as Shagakusha one day. Later, the three royals harass a woman by stealing her bag of precious seeds and toss it to one another, while ordering the woman to serve them some drinks. The bag of seeds then land in front of Shagakusha. He punches the three royals several times which knocks them out, and the woman thanks him for saving her.

Shagakusha accompanies the woman to her farm, where she plants the seeds. He discovers that she is Raama's sister, and the two take Shagakusha back to their house. After drinking the soup that she cooked for him, Shagakusha smiles for the first time in his life. He realized that there's no way he can hate Raama and his sister. On a later day, Shagakusha goes to a vendor to buy apples, but the shop-clerk says there's no way that she can accept money from a hero. Instead, Shagakusha merely takes a flower from the shop and pays the lady a lot anyway. Just then, he is informed by fellow men from the army that a scout has returned from enemy lands, and the enemy will attack them tonight. He is ordered to guard the central gate because it'll be a fierce battle.

Instead, Shagakusha's first instinct is to run away with Raama and his sister. He goes looking for Raama but is told that he went to go buy equipment at a nearby town. Shagakusha worries that their land will be defeated in a single blow because the enemy is a huge nation. Determined to protect Raama's sister, he grabs her arm and runs through the forest of a mountain. She tells him that he needs to protect everyone but he doesn't believe that the citizens want a cursed child to protect them.

Afterwards, he decides to help but when Shagakusha returns from the battle he finds that that Raama and his sister have been killed. The pain in shoulders becomes unbearable, until it explodes and Hakumen no Mono comes out of his shoulders and causes destruction and mayhem to everything it touches. Therefore Shagakusha decides to find a way to put a stop to Hakumen no Mono and goes on a long journey to find ways to kill the monster.

Personality

Tora is many things: He is rude to others including his elders, he is very conceited and confident in his abilities, and is often fully capable of proving his boasting with his sheer power. Nonetheless, sometimes Tora isn't the brightest, and even acts like an immature child. He hates humans and always says he wants to eat them, but ends up saving Ushio and his friends anyway. Upon being freed into the modern world, he is very curious of the technological advancements of humanity, and has an interest in history (owed to being stuck in a cellar for 500 years). Thanks to Mayuko, he gains a taste for burgers.

Relationships

Ushio Aotsuki

Tora's bane of existence (and as much as he denies it, his best friend) is Ushio Aotsuki, the boy who freed him and wields the Beast Spear. Tora has vowed to haunt Ushio until he eats him. Despite Tora always reminding Ushio that someday he will eat him, he always protects Ushio from other Yokai. He says it's to make sure they don't eat him before he does, but it is clear that, as much as he denies it, Tora does care about Ushio. They constantly fight side by side and get into arguments similar to that of brothers in sibling rivalry. There have also been signs that Tora genuinely cares for Ushio, such as when he answered that he stays with Ushio because he's never bored around him, and (although he tried to do so once) he never tries to eat Ushio in his sleep, implying that he wants a fair fight.

Mayuko Inoue

Tora has vowed to eat Mayuko, although he never threatens her or actually tries to eat her, primarily because he knows if he ate her before eating Ushio, the latter would hunt him down to the ends of the earth. Instead, he plans to eat Ushio first, before having Mayuko as dessert. He met Mayuko when he helped save her from the Gamin Yokai, mostly because he chose to eat her before they showed up to kill her. Mayuko has since had a friendship with "Tora-chan", often giving him burgers to eat. Her romantic affection towards him often confuses and embarrasses him, though he reciprocates it in his own gruff manner and becomes quite protective of her. He frequently tries to deny that he cares for her with the excuse that he protects her only so no other monster can eat her. Later it was revealed how deeply Tora is fond of Mayuko, since he gets so enraged that the other yokai captured her just so they can use her to make another beast spear. He was also upset when he heard Mayuko was going to be the next Oyakume, promising her that he will kill Hakumen so that she doesn't need to.

Hakumen no Mono

Hakumen no Mono and Tora fought 800 years ago. With the original yokai-human alliance Tora and Hitotsuki both used their strength to almost defeat Hakumen.

As a human in ancient China Tora was the first to wield the Beast Spear. Chasing Hakumen across the country until Hakumen left for Japan. Tora then threw the spear to Japan because his soul was being consumed by the spear and he was losing his humanity and ability to use the spear.

Power and Abilities

Tora is a supremely powerful Yokai, armed with several supernatural powers and abilities.

Immense Demonic Power

Tora is among the most powerful yokai in the series, and as such beholds extremely strong demonic energy (Youki). A clue to his power is seen at the very start of the story: When Ushio opened the cellar in which Tora was imprisonedm it released the collected demonic energy which had built up inside the cellar for 500 years, attracting hundreds, if not thousands, of demonic fish and insects. The first time Ushio met Tora, his energy enabled the boy to be able to see and hear Yokai immediately.

Supernatural strength

Tora's physical power easily exceeds any human's and most Yokai. He once held up a plane and helped it land when its landing gear jammed (albeit being suckered into doing it by Ushio) and came out of it virtually unharmed aside from a few scrapes and bruises. He has shattered huge constructs with his strength alone, and he can carry up to at least three people without being slowed down.

Fire-Breathing/Wind/Lightning Manipulation

Tora can breathe fire and conjure lightning by mere force of will. His lightning seems to generate from his hair but he can focus it through his claws or even summon a colossal storm of lightning from the sky, as he once stated he can make as much as he wants. He can also conjure powerful slicing gales of air, whirlwinds and tornadoes.

Invisibility/Intangibility/Flight

Tora can make himself invisible to almost everyone but he can be seen by people who already know of the existence of Yokai, those with spiritual powers, and even an occasional child (but if he is sufficiently weakened he can't maintain his invisibility to other humans). He can easily phase through solid walls like a ghost (although he has shown there are times he can't phase through foreign materials like glass, metal, or concrete, which often led to him comically crashing headfirst into structures he tried to access), and he can both fly and levitate. He is capable of flying at least up to 300 mph.

Limited Shapeshifting

Although he rarely resorts to it, Tora has a certain degree of shapeshifting, as he once took the form of Mayuko and was able to pass himself off as a normal human, but he is not used to the forms he takes other than his original form. He has also disguised himself as ramen in an attempt to eat Ushio, and as a fortune paper telling Ushio he would have terrible luck on New Year's (and getting thrown into fire afterwards by a sulking Ushio).

Hair-Manipulation

Tora can control his long mane of hair to do various tasks, such as simply grabbing, or even making his hair into blades to attack his foes but he doesn't do so much unless he's in tight situations. With his hair, Tora can even catch bullets, and he can even form pieces of his hair into realistic clones of humans, as he did with Asako (however these clones seem to appear near-emotionless and don't speak). There is also some kind of sensory ability in his hair as he can locate someone who has a strand of his hair after they pull the hair, seen when he gave a bit of his hair to Asako so she could locate Ushio and then summon Tora.

Advanced durability/endurance

As he often gets into dangerous battles, Tora will sometimes come out severely injured, as he once got his arm chopped off, but was able to re-attach it, and he even survived getting cut in half down the middle and put himself back together (although he had to keep his two halves tied together for a while or else they would split apart by his losing concentration). Tora even survived getting his head ripped off and was able to re-attach it. And of course, Tora is constantly whacked and bonked on the head by Ushio, almost always leaving him with comical bumps on the head. In many battles he is stabbed, clawed, etc., but is able to heal quickly given time. Despite being grievously injured from time to time in battle, Tora is able to keep fighting until he wins, proving his endurance and ability to withstand pain is matched only by his will to win.

Superhuman speed and reflexes

Tora is shown to be remarkably fast, able to easily catch up with a jet and even generate a sonic boom on his own. He also shows great dexterity as he is able to catch bullets shot at him from point-blank range with only the strands of his hair.

Tora

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